Why BDS and Boycotts of Israel Are NOT Anti-Semitic

From Sugar to Nazi Germany to South Africa and Israel - the Boycott is always a Weapon of the Oppressed

This is a good video from Intercept and Mehdi Hassan puts the case persuasively.  It really is worth watching.

Just a couple of minor points – it could have covered the history of the Boycott more comprehensively – from the boycott of Capt. Boycott himself, the English land agent in Ireland, by Irish tenant farmers to the Boycott of Slave Grown Sugar in the Caribbean to the Boycott of Nazi Germany.

The Zionists always refer to the Nazi/SA boycott of Jewish shops on April 1^st.  This was NOT a boycott and Mehdi Hassan is wrong to describe this as such.  This was not so much a boycott as a Nazi imposed SIEGE of Jewish shops.  The SA placed pickets on the shops and people had to literally force their way through often at great peril to themselves.

Gideon Levy of Ha'aretz on Why Israelis Should Support BDS

The best comparison with the Nazi siege of Jewish shops in Nazi Germany is with the Israeli siege of Gaza today.  That is the real comparison.  It is ironic that the reason the Boycott lasted only 1 day (although the SA continually harried Jewish shops in Germany) was because of the Jewish and International Labour Movement Boycott of Nazi Germany.  The bourgeois representatives in Hitler's Cabinet, Foreign Secretary Konstantin von Neurath in particular, threatened to resign, because they were so worried about the  repercussions of the Nazi Boycott. That was why it was called off after less than a day for fear of the Boycott of Nazi Germany, which the Zionists of course vehemently opposed.  

The Zionists are consistent - they opposed the Boycott of Nazi Germany just as they oppose the Boycott of Israel today

As Ha’aretz noted:

While the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses was one of the many preludes to the destruction of the Jews, the boycott directed against Nazi Germany fizzled for a number of reasons – including the obstacles placed in the way by the Zionist establishment due to controversial transfer agreements that the Jewish Agency signed in May 1933 with the Nazi government.

In recent times the most famous of all Boycotts was that against South Africa.  As Mehdi states, at the time we were accused of ‘double standards’ just as we are now accused of double standards for boycotting Israel.  'Why single out Israel' the Zionists cry.  At the time of the Boycott of South Africa the apologists for Apartheid said the same. Why weren’t we boycotting the African states surrounding South Africa which had worse human rights record?

The Nazi SIEGE of Jewish Shops

Our reasons for targeting South Africa only was firstly that the inhabitants of the African states did not ask us to boycott them.  We weren’t boycotting South Africa merely because of its appalling human rights record.  We are not advocating boycotting Israel simply because of its lousy human rights record. South Africa was singled out because it was unique in that it singled out people by virtue of an unalterable characteristic, colour, for discrimination.  The same is true of Israel.  If you are not Jewish then you are perpetually consigned to discriminatory and inferior treatment.  Apartheid, the establishment of a system of state discrimination on the grounds of race is particularly abhorrent.

But apart from these minor criticisms this video is an invaluable weapon in our arsenal.

Tony Greenstein